The role of form and meaning in the processing of written morphology: A priming study in French developing readers

Three visual priming experiments using three different prime durations (60 ms in Experiment 1, 250 ms in Experiment 2, and 800 ms in Experiment 3) were conducted to examine which properties of morphemes (form and/or meaning) drive developing readers’ processing of written morphology. French third, fifth, and seventh graders and adults (the latter as a control group) performed lexical decision tasks in which targets were preceded by morphological (e.g., tablette–TABLE, “little table–table”), pseudoderived (e.g., baguette–BAGUE, “little stick–ring”), orthographic control (e.g., abricot–ABRI, “apricot–shelter”), and semantic control (e.g., Tulipe–FLEUR, “tulip–flower”) primes. Across all groups, different patterns of priming were observed in both morphological and orthographic/semantic control conditions, suggesting that they all process morphemes as units when reading. In developing readers, the processing of written morphology is triggered by the form properties of morphemes, and their semantic properties are activated later in the time course of word recognition. In adults, patterns of priming were similar except that the activation of the form properties of morphemes decreased earlier in the time course of word recognition. Taken together, these findings indicate that French developing readers process both the form and meaning properties of morphemes when reading and support a progressive quantitative change in the development of morphological processing over the course of reading development.     

Arguing About Goals: The Diminishing Scope of Legal Reasoning

This article investigates the implications of goal-legislation for legal argumentation. In goal-regulation the legislator formulates the aims to be reached, leaving it to the norm-addressee to draft the necessary rules. On the basis of six types of hard cases, it is argued that in such a system there is hardly room for constructing a ratio legis. Legal interpretation is largely reduced to concretisation. This implies that legal argumentation tends to become highly dependent on expert (non-legal) knowledge.     

Evidence and a computational explanation of cultural differences in facial expression recognition

Facial expressions are crucial to human social communication, but the extent to which they are innate and universal versus learned and culture dependent is a subject of debate. Two studies explored the effect of culture and learning on facial expression understanding. In Experiment 1, Japanese and U.S. participants interpreted facial expressions of emotion. Each group was better than the other at classifying facial expressions posed by members of the same culture. In Experiment 2, this reciprocal in-group advantage was reproduced by a neurocomputational model trained in either a Japanese cultural context or an American cultural context. The model demonstrates how each of us, interacting with others in a particular cultural context, learns to recognize a culture-specific facial expression dialect.     

Grammatical and nongrammatical contributions to closed-class word selection

Closed-class word selection was investigated by focusing on determiner production. Native speakers from three different languages named pictures of objects using determiner plus noun phrases (e.g., in French "la table" [the-sub(feminineA) table], while ignoring distractor determiners printed on the pictures (e.g., "le" [the-sub(masculine)]. The target and distractor expressed either shared or different grammatical and nongrammatical features (gender, number, and definiteness). A gender-facilitation effect was observed and attributed to noun processing. Crucially, across five experiments, distractors that shared a feature with the target determiner never resulted in longer naming latencies than distractors that were more different. These results indicate that activating related candidates is not detrimental for determiner retrieval, suggesting a noncompetitive mechanism of closed-class word selection.     

Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent

People are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.     

Therapeutic alliance and cohesion variables as predictors of outcome in short-term group psychotherapy

The current study explored the relative ability of aggregate therapeutic alliance and cohesion variables to predict short-term group therapy outcome. Data were collected from a comparative trial of two forms of time-limited group psychotherapy for complicated grief (Piper, McCallum, Joyce, Rosie, & Ogrodniczuk, 2001). The therapeutic alliance and elements of the cohesion construct were measured from the perspectives of each patient and the group therapist at intervals during the groups; scores were aggregated across assessments. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses, adjusting for the effects of treatment approach (interpretive vs. supportive) and specific group membership, demonstrated that the patient-rated alliance was a consistent predictor of outcome. Two cohesion measures, reflecting other participants' (therapist, other members) views of the patient's "fit" with the group, also accounted for variation in outcome. Implications of the findings for research and clinical practice, and the limitations of the measurement approach taken in this study, are considered.